Archaism Response

Archaism is the first of four responses Toynbee catalogued to the schism in the soul. It is the attempt to restore an earlier state of affairs by eliminating the conditions that produced the change. Archaism is psychologically attractive because it offers the comfort of the familiar — the promise that the world can be returned to a condition in which one's skills, values, and identity retain their established place. It is historically futile because the conditions that produced the change are not reversible. The power loom exists. The large language model exists. The productive capability they represent has been demonstrated and cannot be undemonstrated. The archaist response consumes creative energy that would be better directed toward generating a response adequate to the world that actually exists.